Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the VZ Holding analyst conference call on the 2026 half-year results. I am Sandra, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question from the webinar, you may click the Q&A button on the left side of your screen and then click raise your hand button. For written questions, click on the Q&A button on the text button and type your question. If you are connected via phone, you just press star and one.
For operator assistance, press the operator assistance button on the left side of your screen or star-zero on your telephone. At this time, it is my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Giulio Vitarelli, CEO of VZ Holding. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Sandra, and good morning, and welcome to the presentation of our half-year 2026 results and of our outlook. I assume that everyone has been able to download the presentation, which is available on our website or via the link you will find in the invitation for this call. I will guide you through the presentation today together with our Chief Financial Officer, Rafael Pfaffen. Rafael will take over agenda item two, financials, and I will take you through agenda items one and three. Rafael and I will be pleased to answer your questions at the end of the presentation.
Let us start our presentation with the summary on page three of the presentation. As you have seen in the first half of 2026, our business continued to perform well. The strong growth was supported by positive financial markets, of course, but also by the sustained demand for our consulting expertise.
We onboarded 5,100 new platform clients in the first half of the year, and in parallel, we again increased platform usage among existing clients. As you know, this is also one of the key drivers of our long-term growth story. To meet the sustained demand for our consulting services, we increased our front-end consulting capacity by 8.5% to an average of 281 FTEs for the year 2026. Also for 2027 and the years beyond, we expect to further expand our consulting capacity. In 2027, we plan to expand the capacity by around 8% and to bring it to a total of 303 FTEs. Annualized net new money per consulting FTE stood at CHF 23.5 million, which is above the five-year average. This confirms the quality of our consulting capacity growth and the continued strength of our client inflow.
At the same time, this figure is supported by, of course, favorable market sentiment, which is reflected also in client behavior. In Germany, we are seeing similar growth figures as in Switzerland, and the buildup of additional consulting capacity is progressing according to plan. In the U.K., we fully acquired Lumin Group in May 2026, and the ramp-up of smaller IFA acquisitions is on the way. We completed one acquisition in the first half of the year and are in the final stages of completing two more acquisitions. At the same time, we are building a pipeline of acquisition targets to increase the frequency of acquisitions over the coming years, as previously outlined. On the digital side, our VZ Financial Portal continued to strengthen its top three position across Swiss Digitalization Survey in a highly dynamic and competitive environment.
On the right side of this page, we can look at the most important key financial figures. As you have seen, total revenues increased by 13.9% year-on-year to CHF 316.5 million. Total expenses increased by 10.4%, and EBIT margin improved to 48.4% from 46.8% in the first half of 2025. Net profit increased by 17.7% to CHF 131.9 million, corresponding to a net profit margin of 41.7%. Our balance sheet remains robust, with an equity ratio of 13.8% and a high CET1 capital ratio of 28.4%. Assets under management increased to CHF 67.7 billion from CHF 61.8 billion by the end of 2025, and net new money was CHF 3.3 billion in the first half of 2026. Let's go to the details on the following pages. On page four, we see the different components of our revenue stream. Total revenues, as mentioned, increased by 13.9% year-on-year.
The most important or the biggest revenue component, management fees on assets under management, increased by 18.2%. This development was driven by strong net new money and positive financial markets. Other management fees also developed positively, with an increase of 15.3%. Consulting fees grew by 6.8%, showing again that demand for our consulting services remains solid. As you know, this consulting demand is the starting point for our future growth, because consulting projects lead to the introduction of clients to our platform services. Banking income was almost stable, with an increase of 0.8%. We will see the details on the following page, and the insurance results increased by 7.4%. Let's turn to page five, where we can take a closer look at banking income. As expected, interest business decreased by 2.4% year-on-year, but increased 9.1% compared with the second half of 2025.
The development of this line mainly depends on SNB interest rate decisions and on balance sheet growth. In the first half of 2026, interest business accounted for 7.2% of total revenues. Trading results increased by 11.2%. As always, this revenue line can develop randomly because it's driven by financial market dynamics and client activity. Transaction fees decreased by 6.7% year-on-year. As you know, the downward trend in PM mandates continues because of the strong demand for our all-in fee models. This trend is partly compensated by activity from self-directed clients. Trading results and transaction fees together accounted for 8% of total revenues in the first half of 2026. On page six, you can see the evolution of the balance sheet total and the net interest margin. The net interest margin peaked in the second half of 2023 and stabilized in the first half of 2026.
Balance sheet total continued to increase and stood at CHF 8.76 billion at the end of June 2026. The growth of balance sheet is primarily attributable to the expansion of our client base and provided support to the interest business. Based on our current outlook, we expect net interest margin to remain stable in the second half of the year, provided, of course, the interest rate environment and SNB exemption threshold remain stable. Turning to page seven, we see the development of net profit. Net profit increased by roughly 18% year on year to CHF 131.9 million. As you can see, our half-year net profit has grown by more than 50% over the past three years. The net profit margin stood at 41.7%, compared with 40.3% in the first half of 2025. It is clearly above our long-term minimum target of 38%.
We are confident that we can continue to stay above this long-term minimum target also in the coming years, provided financial markets remain broadly stable. Our aim is to stay above this target in nine out of 10 years. On page eight, we show our financial consulting figures. On the left side, you see our consulting capacity, and the development of our consulting capacity is going according to plan. In 2026, we expect an average of 281 FTEs working as financial consultants for new clients. For 2027, we plan a further increase to 303 FTEs, which corresponds to a growth of roughly 8% for the next year. Also for the years beyond 2027, we plan to increase capacity by 7% to 9% per year. This capacity growth enables us, not only today but also in future, to meet the sustained demand for our consulting services.
It is important to emphasize that this is consulting capacity to serve new clients and therefore new platform potential. Wealth managers, that means the capacity that serves existing platform clients, are not included in this number. Consulting revenues in the middle of the page continued to increase and reached CHF 22.6 million in the first half of 2026. This is a concrete indication that demand for our advisory offering remains strong, and we assume that the growth of demand will go on also in 2027 and the years beyond.
Net new money came in at CHF 3.3 billion in the first half of 2026, and annualized net new money per consulting FTE stood at CHF 23.5 million, which is above the five-year average of CHF 22.4 million for the last five years. This shows that market sentiment is positive and that the productivity of the consulting capacity remains at the high level.
On page nine, we discuss the details of the wealth management numbers. Assets under management increased by 19.8% year on year to CHF 67.7 billion. This increase was driven by both strong net new money and positive market performance. You can see the positive market performance in the second line in the PM mandates, where AUM grew by 25.2%. The PM mandates represented 67.2% of total assets under management at the end of June 2026. The other assets under management stood at CHF 22.2 billion and grew by 9.9% in the first half year, 2026. As mentioned, net new money increased by 9.7% year on year to CHF 3.3 billion for the first half of 2026. Important for us are the two lines of the wealth management clients, the number of wealth management clients, and the new clients we won in the first half year.
The total number increased by 15.1% year-on-year to 101,000 clients by the end of June 2026. We onboarded therefore 5,165 net new wealth management clients in the first half year, which is 3.2% more than in the same period of 2025. Going into the details of our platform clients, how they use our platforms, we can move to page 10. The number of wealth management clients, as we have seen before, is displayed on the left side, reached more than 101,000 households. At the same time, we are making progress on increasing platform usage per client or per household, to be correct. The share of clients using only one platform continued to decrease to 44.4%, while the share of clients using three or more platforms increased to 29.1%. As you know, our target is a share of 33% of clients using at least three platforms.
This development is important because clients who use more platforms are closer to VZ, have a broader relationship with us, and generate more recurring revenues. Continuing to add more than 5,000 net new wealth management clients in a half year period, while also increasing platform usage can be considered a strong performance because the new clients normally start only with the usage of one platform. A very important measurement for us is client satisfaction, which is shown on page 11. We measure the satisfaction with the Net Promoter Score methodology. In the first half of 2026, the score was 80.4 for consulting clients and 85.6 for wealth management clients. These are very high numbers. We can say these are outstanding, and because you know an NPS score over 50 is considered as excellent.
It is very important for us that even with a fast-growing client base, we continue to maintain an extremely high level of service quality. On page 12, we see our branch office network across Switzerland, Germany, and the U.K. In Switzerland, we currently run 43 branch offices, and we plan to open new branch offices in Bülach and in Biel as part of our continued expansion. Biel and Bülach will be open over the next, let's say, six to nine months. In Germany, we currently have six branch offices, and we are exploring the possibility of opening a branch office in Hamburg in the next years. In England, there are five offices, and the expansion is driven by organic growth, but also by our acquisition strategy. The physical presence remains an important part of our business model.
It supports client proximity, increases brand visibility, and helps us to capture demand in the relevant regions. At the same time, the VZ Financial Portal is the digital interface to our clients, and the combination of physical presence and digital access is a key competitive advantage. We will go on expanding our physical presence, and we will go on expanding or investing in our digital interface. Now for the next agenda item, I have the pleasure to pass you over to our Chief Financial Officer, Rafael Pfaffen, who will go through the details of our financials. Rafael, please.
Good morning also from my side. I start the presentation on page 14. Here you can see the development of the revenues, expenses, and the net profit over the last two and a half years. Giulio has already given you quite a lot of information about the individual revenue lines. I, therefore, start in the middle of the page with the total revenues. As we have already seen, they increased by 13.9% from roughly CHF 278 million to CHF 316.5 million. Personnel expenses grew by 10.4% to CHF 115 million, and the other operating expenses grew by 12.2% to roughly CHF 35 million. I will elaborate a little bit later on those two expense lines. The depreciation and amortization increased by 6.5% to CHF 13.3 million, and as a result, the total expenses grew by 10.4% to CHF 163.3 million.
As the expenses grew a little bit slower than the total revenues, the EBIT increased over proportionately by 17.8% and increased from CHF 130 million in the first half year of 2025 to CHF 153.2 million in the first half year 2026. The net profit grew in line with the EBIT. Net profit increased by 17.7% to CHF 131.9 million. The personnel expenses are shown on the next page. They increased, as we have seen, by 10.4% to roughly CHF 115 million. The personnel expense ratio was at 36.4%, and is below our long-term maximum expense ratio of 39%, as Giulio has already mentioned, all our targets are meant that we are below the maximum target or above the minimum target in nine out of 10 years.
The FTE base grew in the first half year by 77 FTEs to a total of 1,749 FTEs, which means that we had in the first half year of 2026 or in June of 2026, more than 2,030 people employed within the VZ Group. On page 16, you see the other operating expenses. They increased to CHF 34.9 million. That's an increase of 12.2%. As we have also seen in 2025, there are certain seasonality in this figure, so we think that the other operating expenses in the second half year of 2026 will most likely not increase a lot. Maybe they are stable at the CHF 35 million roughly, or maybe they could even be a little bit lower. We don't have the insights yet.
This growth must be compared from the first half year 2025 to the first half year of 2026, and you should not look at the development from the second half year of 2025 to the first half year of 2026. The premises expenses grew by 16%. Here you can see that we increase our branch office network, that we increase our office spaces and client meeting spaces. The marketing expenses grew by 4% and the general administrative expenses increased by 14.7%. Here we had the accumulation of some small effects that resulted in a little bit higher increase in this figure, compared to other years. The long-term operating expense ratio is expected to remain between 11% and 13% going forward. The EBIT is shown on the next page. It increased by 17.8% as mentioned, and the EBIT margin therefore came in at 48.4%.
Our long-term target here is, as you know, 44%. I already move on to the balance sheet on page 18. I explain you the differences as always on a year-to-date basis. I compare June 2026 figures with December figures 2025. I start in the middle of the page with the total assets, respectively, the balance sheet total. The total assets increased by roughly CHF 500 million from CHF 8.27 billion to CHF 8.76 billion. On the liability side, the biggest contributor were the customer deposits. They increased by CHF 250 million to roughly CHF 6.4 billion. The money then was invested on the active side, primarily in Swiss prime residential mortgages. That is the third line. The mortgage book increased by roughly CHF 350 million and stood at roughly CHF 5.2 billion in June 2026. At the bottom, you see the development of the total equity.
The total equity increased only by CHF 24 million. That is a usual effect in the first half year. The fact is that we pay out the dividends to the shareholders in the first half year, and this decreases then the equity in the first place. This decrease in the equity is then compensated by the net profit of the first half year, and thus both figures are more or less at a similar level as the total equity remains more or less unchanged. The future balance sheet growth will be driven by new client inflow. As you know, we have an overall balance sheet that is very safe. Our average remaining interest period is 1.7 years, which means that we can quickly adjust to new interest levels. The loan-to-value ratio on our mortgage book is below 50%. We also have a very liquid balance sheet.
If we look again at the table, the first line, the cash and cash equivalents, the CHF 1.7 billion is our deposits that we have with the Swiss National Bank and the Deutsche Bundesbank. In the line bonds and other financial assets, roughly half of this position is a bond portfolio, a high liquid asset bond portfolio that you could easily convert into cash, either by selling those bonds or convert them into cash via the repo businesses. I move on to the next page, we start on the right-hand side. Here you can also see that we have a very safe balance sheet. The equity ratio was at 13.8% and the CET1 capital ratio was at 28.4%, which are both very good figures. It is a little bit a coincidence that the 28.4% remained exactly at the same level in the last one and a half years.
The second decimal place is different, so it is not that the figure is exactly the same. Here you can see that our risk exposure is very stable and that we do not increase the risk profile when our balance sheet is growing. As you know, and as we have explained also last year, the FINMA has classified the VZ Depository Bank and VZ Group as a Category 3 institute or institutions, before we were a Category 3 institute. This means that we have a little bit closer contact with the FINMA, and that we are a little bit closer monitored by the FINMA. Overall, that is positive for us. The interaction with the FINMA is interesting and good for us. The Moody's rating remained at the Aa3 stable.
That is in the S&P terminology, an Aa3, which is a very good figure for a relatively small bank such as the VZ Depository Bank. On the left-hand side, you see the dividends that we have paid out in the first half year of 2026. It is the CHF 116.2 million. This corresponds to a payout ratio of 50%. As you know, we also plan to have a payout ratio of 50% in the coming years, always provided that the general assembly then approves this payout ratio. At the bottom on the left-hand side, you see the number of treasury shares that we have for our management benefit program. Here we are stable at around 600,000 shares. With this information, I hand back to Giulio, who will elaborate a little bit on the upcoming quarter.
Thank you, Rafael, for your comments. Let us now go to the outlook section on page 21. What I can say is that our long-term growth story that we have seen over the last 33 years remains unchanged. Our track record demonstrates that strong consulting demand leads to more platform clients and increased platform usage that supports recurring revenues over time. Said that, we will continue and focus on increasing new client inflow. We will focus on our consulting capacity, increasing consulting capacity. We want to increase or be stable in client conversion and platform usage. These elements are the core of our business model and form the basis for future growth. On the digitalization side, we will continue to develop the VZ Financial Portal. The next steps include conversational banking and single sign-on to all our digital platforms.
In addition, we are building an AI-based retirement consulting agent based on our expertise. By combining our physical presence with strong digital expertise, we expect to make it even easier for prospective clients to access our services. In Germany, we will continue scaling consulting capacity to support the organic growth that we have there. The continued expansion of our consultant base provides the foundation for opening additional branches, which we are currently evaluating. We are thinking about opening a new branch office in Hamburg, for example. In the U.K., we are building up consulting capacity, increasing marketing activities, and expanding IFA acquisitions. Based on our current pipeline, we expect to be able to complete three to four acquisitions this year. Over the coming years, we intend to further increase the pace of acquisitions to maybe four to eight acquisitions per year.
Let me also say a few words on the financial outlook, on the right side. Of course, provided stable financial markets, we expect a similar overall growth rate in the second half of 2026 as in the first half of 2026. So we expect the growth rate to be at a similar level. We expect net interest margin in 2026 to be a comparable level as in the first half of 2026. So we were at 53 basis points in the first half year, and we expect to be at a similar level in the second half year of 2026. Of course, this margin is subject to the SNB policy. Our expectation bases on stable SNB policy rate and exemption threshold. For the years 2027 and beyond, we expect top line and bottom line growth rates to approach a similar level as the average of the last 10 years.
That means that we expect to continue to grow at around 10% per annum. It is very important to us to maintain the balance sheet structure and the low-risk profile in line with past years. We continue to target a payout ratio, as Rafael mentioned, of about 50% of net profit. Therefore, dividends are expected to grow alongside net profit. Here our presentation comes to an end, and now Rafael and I are ready for your questions. For this, I will pass you over to the operator.
Thank you very much, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question from the webinar may click the Q&A button on the left side of the screen and then click the Raise Your Hand button. For written questions, please click the Q&A button and the Text button and type your question. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone to confirm that you've entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press the Lower Your Hand button from the webinar or press star and two on the telephone. Anyone who has a question may queue up now. Our first question comes from Daniel Regli from Zürcher Kantonalbank. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. My first question is on the outlook for H2. You said similar growth rate expected in H2. Can you maybe specify whether you refer to top-line growth, net new money, net profit or everything together? Secondly, a quick question on the other operating expenses and in particular the marketing expenses. I think Rafael, referred to look at or compare H1 with H1, and as I see, it is particularly the marketing expenses which show a certain seasonality. Can you confirm that also we should continue to see this seasonality going forward? Maybe also if you could elaborate a bit where exactly you spend your money and how you decide on when to spend the money.
My third question, if I may, would be on this AI-based retirement consulting agent. Can you maybe talk a little bit about the timeline and how, if at all, you plan to monetize this? Thank you.
Thank you, Daniel, for your questions. Maybe I shortly answer the first question and then I pass you over to Rafael for the second question, and I will come back for the third one. To your first question, the expectation for second half 2026 refers to top-line and bottom-line growth. There we expect the same rates as we have seen in this first half-year result. So we refer clearly to top-line and bottom-line growth.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you.
Then I go on to the second question, the other operating expenses. Yes, you are right. One of the biggest seasonality in this figure is the marketing. One of our biggest marketing expenses is the VZnews that we send out to our clients or potential clients. Normally we send out five VZnews per year, and three of them coming in the first half year and two in the second half year. That explains the seasonality in the marketing costs that you can see here.
Okay. Thank you.
Good. Then the third question is about AI, the AI agent that I mentioned that we are building, or we started to build it. Talking about AI, maybe I spend a few words on the environment and why it is important to us, or why that is always a question. For that, it is important to understand that retirement planning in Switzerland is highly complex. Retirement planning for people means that it requires many decisions, each of which can have a significant impact on the individual's standard of living over the next 20 or 30 years. Moreover, these questions cannot be answered in a standardized way, so they must be addressed on an individual basis. If these questions or these decisions are made incorrectly, the consequences for a person's long-term financial well-being can be substantial and lasting.
In addition, providing the right recommendations requires access to a considerable amount of personal information, including tax returns, pension statements, bank account records, and other sensitive financial data. Only with this information, advice can be tailored to an individual's specific circumstances. It does not matter if advice is brought physically or digitally via AI. Today, all what I said means that or would mean disclosing a large amount of highly personal information to general purpose AI models, like ChatGPT, Gemini or whoever. I am very skeptical. Personally, I am very skeptical that many people will be willing to do that. For this reason, I strongly believe that personal interaction and human expertise will remain highly relevant. This is also why we decided to build our own AI agent specifically for retirement planning.
We started build it four weeks ago, and to your question, we plan to roll out it internally over the next six to nine months. If it works internally, then we can roll out it also for our clients. This model will allow clients to benefit from AI support guidance in a secure environment. That is very important. What is also important, it will be backed by trusted expertise and with always the option of involving a human expert at any time. That means, and I am convinced that only a small part of clients using such an agent will use it till the end. I am convinced that a lot of them will search physical interaction or look for physical interaction with an expert. That means that the monetization of it will be the same as we see today with the physical way of advising clients. Is that understandable?
Yes. Absolutely. Thank you so much.
As a reminder, for questions from the webinar, click the Q&A button on the left side of your screen and click Raise Your Hand button. For written question, click the Q&A button and then Text button and type your question. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one. The next question comes from Gerhard Schwarz from Baader Helvea. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for taking my questions and congratulations to those excellent results today. I got a question on the net interest margin. It has increased slightly sequentially from 51 basis points to 53 basis points. Can you explain, please, if this is just a blip or a random movement, or if we can expect a lasting level around 53 and not 51 or below 50 basis points? The second question would be, currently, markets price in SNB rate hike by the middle of next year. What would this mean for your net interest margin going forward into the second half of next year? Would this rise to 60 basis points, or is it too early to talk about that? Thank you.
Yeah. The net interest margin increased a little bit, as you mentioned, and here the biggest impact comes from the mortgage book. Over in Switzerland, the price for mortgages increased, and we were also able to increase our margin a little bit, and this then resulted in this 53 basis points margin that we have seen. If this trend continues, it's difficult to foresee. I would assume that the margin remains more or less stable at the level that we have seen in the first half year. Yes, if the SNB rate would go up, our net profit margin would also go up. But here it's difficult to give an indication. It really depends when in the cycle or in the half year the SNB would do it.
But as I have mentioned, our balance sheet reacts quite quickly to new interest level because we have quite a big SARON book. Most of our mortgages are SARON based, and therefore, the interests increase in this mortgage book quite quickly if the SNB goes up. But to say really the effect on the net interest margin is difficult because this also depends on how other banks would increase the interest they give to the clients on the liability side.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Andreas Venditti from Vontobel. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. On management fees, we have seen a nice boost on those based on AUM. However, also the other management fees that are not directly dependent on the AUM grows very strongly with 15%, I think one of the highest growth rates of the last five years. Maybe you can add a few color on this strong growth. Then on the insurance result, I know it is a minor number, but still, it is now the second half year with somewhat lower year-on-year growth rates than in the past. Maybe you can also explain a bit this development. Finally, on IFRS 18, will there anything change in your disclosure? If yes, can you maybe provide a few hints? Thank you.
Thank you for your questions. I will take the first question on the other management fees. Yes, the other management fees depends on the growth of number of clients mainly. As we were able to onboard more clients, I am talking mainly about pension schemes for our business clients. We were able to onboard more clients on the pension schemes. We had a bigger move there on this line. That was the reason why. Maybe second and third question, Rafael?
Yes. For the insurance results here, it is always a little bit difficult to look at the first half year because the actuaries are always quite conservative in the first half year. Nevertheless, you are right. The increase was only at 7.4% compared to the last half year. I think in the insurance result, it is important to know that we grow roughly by 12%-15% per year. As we show here a net figure, it is always fluctuating a little bit. Overall, as I said, we grow by 12%-15% and our average claims ratio in both insurance companies is around 65%. So in the mid and long term, that is a quite attractive business. The fluctuation on a half-year basis is a little bit difficult to interpret.
Most important is also to know that mostly at the end of the year, we can release some reserves, some IBNR. Most of the time, the second half year comes then in higher than the first half year. If that is okay, I move on to the IFRS 18 question. Yes, we will be affected a little bit. We have to restructure the P&L a little bit, and there are new categories. As you know, there will be one part for the operating business, then for investing and financing. Otherwise, there will be no big effects for us because of the bank. We already show the net interest income in the top line, and there will be only a few movements within the financing and investing part. So the top line will not be really affected and the net profit, not at all. Were these two answers clear?
Sure. Thank you very much.
Okay, thanks.
We take now a follow-up question from Daniel Regli from Zürcher Kantonalbank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thanks for having me again. Just one question on your outlook slide. On the left-hand side, you are talking about continuous work on increasing new client inflow, consulting capacity, client conversion, and platform usage. I just wondered, you saw a very strong net new money number in H1, with CHF 23.5 million per financial consultant. This sounds like you still see some room for improvement. Could we see this number to go even higher? Is this a wrong interpretation of what I see on this slide?
I wouldn't say it's wrong, but I also wouldn't say that there is much room for improvement. It's also a little bit fluctuating on market sentiment of the client, first point. It's also fluctuating, and let me go back. Why it's fluctuating because of market sentiment? Because market sentiment drives the decision of client to invest faster or not so fast, and also drives existing clients to invest more or not to invest more. That's very important by interpreting this figure. Of course, we try to increase the efficiency of our consulting capacity. But much more important is to develop the consulting capacity. The number of FTEs that can serve the growing demand for our services. Our focus is not growing that number. Of course, we try to do it, but our focus stays on growing the consulting capacity for the growing demand for our expertise.
Okay. Thank you so much.
We take now the written question from Michael Schulz from JMS. His question is: Is the Rentenreform in Germany a business opportunity for you, or is it not relevant for VZ?
Yes, the Rentenreform in Germany, of course, it's an opportunity for VZ, but it's not an opportunity in terms of directly making business out of it. It's an opportunity because we can support our position providing expertise about the Rentenreform. The Rentenreform, and I assume that Mr. Schulz is talking about the Altersvorsorgedepot that will be introduced in Germany in 2027. It's comparable to the third pillar in Switzerland, but the amount that you can contribute in the Altersvorsorgedepot in Germany will be much smaller than in Switzerland. But we will be ready with an own solution in Germany in January 2027, when it will be possible to offer such a solution. So the Rentenreform is very important for us, because that makes the discussion about retirement much more important, and so we can positioning us VZ with our expertise.
For any further questions from the webinar, please click the Q&A button on the left side of the screen and click raise your hand button. For written questions, click the Q&A button and then text button and type your question. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one. Gentlemen, so far there are no further question. Back over to you for any closing remarks.
Thank you, Sandra, and thank you all for joining this meeting, for your questions. I wish you a good weekend. I assume that we will meet in the next month or meet then in a half year when we will present our full year results. Have a good day and see you soon.
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